All Souls Family! Happy Solstice!

What a glorious event and movement we have become!

This year with 50,000 marching & even more on lookers-this cultural revolution is strident!

Attendees flock to Tucson from all over the planet to come experience our Tucson style of celebration and participate in a mass remembrance–together…

We have many updates and news for the upcoming year:

The Numbers

We keep trying to catch up to y’all..but it is hard with the exponential growth of the event each year….We calculate that for every new participant it costs the organization about $1.00 in costs somewhere down the long line of costs associated with producing the event safely and responsibly.

For the record–No one working behind the scenes is making ANY money–in fact–most of the folks behind the scene are paying to be there and work as hard as it takes to pull this off each year. What is also true is that the cost of the event is very cheap–there are events like ours few and far between in the U.S. Very rarely does the public, en mass, get to walk 2 miles down the streets of their mid-sized city and celebrate like we do..this is a precious thing we have here in Tucson and we are making progress in preserving this legacy and ceremony that we all obviously find important as our way of life in the old pueblo. Also for the record..besides posters, postcards and out sponsored Zocalo page..the ASP spends $0 on advertising and marketing. This mess of numbers and red ink has been attained through focus the Qualitative aspects of the experience.

We are blessed to have artists Mykl Wells and Joe Marshall step up to the plate and take on the hands on art making workshop. The accomplishments of the workshops was fruitful in the Procession and we want to keep it going as Mykl and Joe have both made a multi-year commitment. We need your support specifically for this aspect of the Procession experience. You can make an earmarked donation for the workshops specifically HERE

E-Book Series

Artistic director Nadia Hagen and long time regional participant and clown du jour, Jacob Devaney have released 2 parts of a multi-series E-Book Series on the All Souls Procession. The first installment is based on The Procession of Little Angels

What to look forward to in 2013:

Besides our main Tucson Events– MMOS does support & sponsor other like minded events in the region.

In 2013 MMOS will further support other regional events such as P.A.P.A. in Phoenix and PITFIRE in Douglas , AZ. If you have not been to these events…Please do..they are wonderful, inclusive, participatory and diverse.

PHOENIX ANNUAL PARADE OF THE ARTS

Some images from PITFIRE at Cochise College:

MMOS entering our first NEA Grant Cycle

With the City of Tucson support as our consortium partner- MMOS is going for our first NEA -OUR TOWN grant. The Our Town Grant is a perfect fit for All Souls Procession as we are working diligently to keep our funding for All Souls Procession based on small donations, private bequeaths, local business support and grants and larger funding from local, regional and national public funding opportunities. Who would you want to fund your funeral?

Nemcatacoa Teatro- All Souls Procession Residency

MMOS was awarded $25,000 from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (Southern Exposure Program), as part of a 5 group consortium who each receive $25k each to bring the stilt-physical-experimental theatre group from Columbia- Nemcatacoa Teatro. MMOS is honored to be a part of this amazing residency with our friends in crime-The Carpetbag Brigade. Nemcatacoa Teatro will be arriving in Tucson in October and will be an integral part of the All Souls activities as well we will be touring local rural areas in Southern AZ to do outreach and present their amazing work to our region.

On Going Educational Opportunities

Tucson Circus Arts is going into high gear! We have lots of new classes and workshop opportunities this year. Aerial Dance, Stilt Walking, Hand Balance and much, much more. We will be hosting specialty workshops this year as well in Cyr Wheel, Roman Ladder and more to be announced!

We have special holiday gift certificates for workshops as classes available as well.